Mark Tufo - 'Til Death Do Us Part

I was already starting to breathe heavily and we weren’t even in the damn thing yet. “Trip, I don’t know. I have this thing about tight places.”

“It’s just like being born.” He smiled.

“I don’t remember what it was like to be born, Trip.”

“You don’t? I thought everyone did. Well it’s just like it! No sense in thinking about it… you ready?”

“Not fucking really,” I said, starting to work on a world class panic attack.

“It’ll be fun,” he said as he went over to a large plastic storage bin. He pulled out a small drum-shaped container.

At first I couldn’t register what he was doing; my legs were bobbing up and down so fast I couldn’t focus on anything. Then he started to grab big handfuls of the white substance and starting at his tin foil hat, began to apply liberal amounts over his whole body.

“Can you get my back?” John asked me.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Lard, it simulates the fluids in the placenta.”

“I think you’re taking this a little too far,” I told him.

“First time I went through there I almost got stuck. As it was, it took me four hours to get through. It goes by a lot quicker with the lard.”

“Trip, I can’t be in that hole for four hours! I’m bigger than you, how am I going to fit? Just go, get your wife, I’ll stay here until the zombies leave and go back up through the cabin.”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

Relief flowed through my system, but co-mingled with it was despair. I would be alone.

“Let’s have one last lunch together,” John said as he wiped his hands clean of the heavy lubricant and dipped back into his storage bin; he grabbed a couple of MRE’s and some chemical packets to heat them up. Within a few minutes, my packet of corned beef and hash was piping hot. I grabbed the closed (and sealed) packet from him before he had a chance to open it.

“If you don’t stir it around some it of stays cold.” He said as he popped a soda and handed it to me.

“I’ll do it,” I said with a shudder, his hands getting entirely too close to my food, even if there was nuclear safe material between him and the sustenance. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He grabbed his food, stirred it around, and began to eat heartily.

There was a comfort to the food, not in the taste mind you, that was more like rat stew, but it was the breaking of bread with a friend.

“Want some hot sauce?” he asked.

“No, I’m almost done.”

“Good stuff?”

“Edible,” I answered honestly. “I’m going to miss you, John the Tripper.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that too much.” John took longer than normal to eat his meal, almost savoring every morsel; even stopping for long moments to examine his Spork.

“Man, I’m tired.” I yawned.

“I bet,” John said. “Want some crackers?” he asked, splitting the packet open.

“No, and why would you bet that?”

“Valiums have that effect on people.”

“What?” I tried to ask with excitement, but I just couldn’t get enough adrenaline flowing.

“I put a few in your pop.”

“Dude, you have got to stop drugging me without at least taking me out for dinner,” I said sleepily.

He grabbed my now empty can and shook it in front of my face.

“Right,” I replied. “So now what?”

“I’m going to wait until the pills kick in completely, then I’m going to take off that awesome poncho you’ve got and cover you in lard, then I’m going to drag you through the birth canal,” he said as he popped a handful of crackers into his mouth.

“I’m scared, Trip,” I admitted.

“No need to be, yet. Wait until we’re in the helicopter…then you’ll have good reason.”

“Fucking swell,” I told him.

We sat there a few more minutes as he poured a mini bottle of Tabasco over the last couple of crackers and washed them down with some red Kool-Aid-looking drink.

“Wouldn’t that be awesome if the Kool-Aid man just came and knocked a hole in the wall for us?” I asked John, looking longingly at the spot I sincerely hoped that would happen.

“Does this Kool-Aid man have anything to do with Rocky Stallone?” John asked.

“Where are you from, Trip? Those are national r icons.”

“Up,” he said and motioned. “You just slurred. I think we’re ready.”

“I’m scared, buddy,” I repeated as I got up and started to pull the poncho over my head, and then I couldn’t remember in which direction I needed to pull to get it over my head.

“No problema , your life is in my hands.” He laughed as he finally got the heavy material off of me.

John dropped about a pound of the lard on the top of my head smashing my hat down onto my head; it felt like a damn runny ostrich egg as he spread it around my face and shoulders.

“I’m not really liking the way this feels, John. Things will stick to me.”

“Naw, man, this to help from sticking,” he said as he slathered copious amounts of the white goo on my ass.

Wow! I’m looking back at the words I’m writing and I’m having a hard time deciding whether to keep them there, this is starting to sound like a porno. If I had a bigger eraser I’d rub those words out. Yes I could keep going in that vein, as a guy it’s actually pretty easy. But since my wife will probably one day see this journal, I’m going to swing it back.

“I don’t really like people touching me, Trip.”

“What? Put your hands over your head,” was all he said.

I complied, any more lard and he could have shot me through a straw. He patted down my legs better than any cop frisking I had ever had. I was afraid to move, so sure that I was going to stick to myself. I don’t even like the sticky feel of humidity—this was excruciating. I almost wanted to go through the damn hole now just so I could get this shit off of me.

“Okay, now do me,” John said as he put his hands over his head. He waited a few moments before turning around. “You said you didn’t like people touching you .”

“It goes both ways.”

“It’s this or four hours in the hole.” He smiled.

“Fuck,” I said as I grabbed a giant handful of the lard. “This is so gross, why didn’t you use vegetable oil?”

“Wore off too quick.” After a few more moments, John seemed pleased with his new uniform of rendered animal fat. He grabbed some rope and made a harness for me securing it together with a mountaineer’s clasp. He then did the same to himself, then tied us together with about a fifteen foot length of what I considered to be entirely too thin rope.

“This gonna hold? It looks like dental floss. Or maybe a super model’s thong.”

“I’d trust my life to this rope,” he told me.

“What about mine?”

“You’ll be fine, man, I won’t leave you.”

“I’m more concerned you might forget.”

“You ready?” he asked as he tugged hard on our connections. My body was so loose I almost fell over. “You look like you’re going to fall asleep. I’m sorry, we’re going to have to leave your poncho behind…that’s some rocking duds.”

“Maybe someday we can come back and get it,” I said, then took a big breath.

“Small breaths, okay?”

“Does hyperventilating count?”

He smacked my chest twice. “When I tell you to put your hands over your head, do it okay? And just relax. I’ve got this. Do you know what day it is?”

I shook my head from side to side. “No idea, does it matter?”

“About what?” he asked as he checked his gear again.

Panic started to force the corned beef back up. But then I pictured myself with the vomit sticking to my thick white coating and I thought better of it. I swallowed it back down. Without another word, John climbed into the hole. Not so bad , I thought as I got in.